Estrogen deficiency associated with alcoholic diet, as well as estrogen deficiency (analyzed independently of diet type), decreased the immunostaining for OPG and increased the immunostaining for RANKL in the periodontium of rats.
Osteoprotegerin (OPG) is implicated in the pathogenesis of postmenopausal osteoporosis, and other metabolic bone diseases caused by estrogen deficiency.
The current studies employed a mouse ovariectomy (OVX) model of estrogen deficiency to investigate gene therapy with OPG as a means of preventing osteoporosis.
Thus, osteoclast formation may be determined principally by the relative ratio of OPG-L/ODF to OPG/OCIF in the bone marrow microenvironment, and alterations in this ratio may be a major cause of bone loss in many metabolic disorders, including estrogen deficiency and glucocorticoid excess.